Which lekky bike?

[ColinM50]

Not having ridden a bike since I was at school and recently retired, so been a few years, I'm now looking for a lekky bike to go on our Motorhome for shopping trips etc. Don't want to do mountain biking or off road stuff, I think a hybrid type would suit. Not got much money available, so budget is ideally around the £600 mark.

Any suggestions or more importantly what I should avoid?

TIA

[Magic919]

It's hard to find anything in the way of e bikes for that price. Shops start selling them at about £900. If you are able to reach Rutland Cycling, they have a few at about that price.

Decent 36v batteries cost a few hundred, then you need a motor, so you can see it's quite hard to do them cheaply. I expect there are some anonymous Chinese e bikes on eBay, but that could go badly.

[Bill]

Recently retired, summer coming up; sounds like the perfect opportunity to get active. You might enjoy it.

[Barchettaman]

Hi Colin,

I've spent the last few weeks in Stuttgart which has a very high proportion of commuters on trekking/hybrid style 'pedalecs', i.e. bikes with electric assistance, max 250watt motor/ 25kmh assisted speed.

The market seems to have settled on a mid-mounted electric drive (bottom bracket) with a frame mounted battery. There are various manufacturers (Shimano, Yamaha, Bafang) but the vast majority I saw were Bosch.

Price wise they're available from about €1700 over here. Well over your budget but shopping for bikes is all about budget creep.

Popular makes are Haibike, Giant, Gudreit, lots of others too.

[mike13]

There is a forum specifically for leccy bikes, Pedelecs, with a classifieds section, second hand value of whoosh bikes might be around your figure!

[anonymous-user]

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...
A guy at work has one of these, looked good for the money. Folder, so may be useful for the motor home ?

[Laurel Green]

Jimboka said:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...
A guy at work has one of these, looked good for the money. Folder, so may be useful for the motor home ?

I was about to suggest the above as have seen a few of these about on the towpath though 'tis early days so not sure how such cheap bikes will fare over time.

I'd suggest hiring/borrowing a conventional bike before such expenditure; you might be pleasantly surprised!

[JQ]

I can't help with recommendations, but is it worth trying a normal bicycle for significantly less cost? My 75yr old father cycles everywhere, does his weekly shop on his bike and even took his bike to Le Mans this year. He only took up cycling after he retired and loves it, he's no Bradley Wiggins - he has a Marin hybrid with suspension built into the saddle and cycles slowly in his normal clothes. However, he's massively more fit than most of his mates and will probably outlive me.

[TwistingMyMelon]

Beware of cheap ones, £600 is arse end of market

My local LBS gets inundated with people buying cheap electric bikes online, for them to break a month later and bring them to LBS, often parts are simply not available so they are difficult to fix.

Id look to just get a hybrid for £300 and enjoy the sunshine

[anonymous-user]

The Halfords £650 one has a 2 year guarantee on the major components